FSU's athletics budget suddenly good, not in shortfall after all

4:11 p.m. EST, June 8, 2012|By Coley Harvey, Orlando Sentinel

"We took (the budget) to committee, we set our budget back, we looked at it, we looked at all the different avenues in that regard and (Boosters CEO) Andy Miller and I looked very closely in where we could go with that (and) we reduced our budget by an additional $1 million and then went with Andy and we started a series of initiatives," Spetman said. "Andy has done some adjusting of some of the fees he's charged. His annual fundraising has been better than he had predicted also."

To that point, trustee Mark Hillis asked: "So Randy, you're saying that all the press you received related to this $2.4 million deficit was really not a deficit yet, we just hadn't completed our budgeting process?

Spetman replied: "Yes."

Hillis continued his inquiry: "So we didn't have (the deficit) and we took a lot of … when we shouldn't have?"

Spetman took credit for letting the budgetary process get past him.

"They reported accurately what they saw in the athletic board," Spetman said. "We will in the next couple of weeks close that out and move forward."

Outgoing trustee chair Andy Haggard then pressed Spetman one last time: "Whatever word you use, we don't have a deficit?"